World Bank Report 2017

A World Bank Group Flagship Report

Doing Business sheds light on how easy or difficult it is for a local entrepreneur to open and run a small to medium-size business when complying with relevant regulations. It measures and tracks changes in regulations affecting 11 areas in the life cycle of a business: starting a business, dealing with construction permits, getting electricity, registering property, getting credit, protecting minority investors, paying taxes, trading across borders, enforcing contracts, resolving insolvency and labor market regulation. Doing Business 2017 presents the data for the labor market regulation indicators in an annex. The report does not present rankings of economies on labor market regulation indicators or include the topic in the aggregate distance to frontier score or ranking on the ease of doing business.

In a series of annual reports Doing Business presents quantitative indicators on business regulations and the protection of property rights that can be compared across 190 economies, from Afghanistan to Zimbabwe and over time. Europe and Central Asia has consistently been the region with the highest average number of reforms per economy; the region is now close to having the same good practices in place as the OECD high-income economies. A number of countries in the region— Georgia, Latvia, Lithuania, and the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia—are now ranked among the top 30 economies in Doing Business. The indicators are used to analyze economic outcomes and identify what reforms have worked, where and why.

This economy profile presents the Doing Business indicators for Iran, Islamic Rep. To allow useful comparison, it also provides data for other selected economies (comparator economies) for each indicator. The data in this report are current as of June 1, 2016 (except for the paying taxes indicators, which cover the period January–December 2015).

The Doing Business methodology has limitations. Other areas important to business—such as an economy’s proximity to large markets, the quality of its infrastructure services (other than those related to trading across borders and getting electricity), the security of property from theft and looting, the transparency of government procurement, macroeconomic conditions or the underlying strength of institutions—are not directly studied by Doing Business. The indicators refer to a specific type of business, generally a local limited liability company operating in the largest business city. Because standard assumptions are used in the data collection, comparisons and benchmarks are valid across economies. The data not only highlight the extent of obstacles to doing business; they also help identify the source of those obstacles, supporting policy makers in designing regulatory reform.

Using the data originally developed by Women, Business and the Law, this year for the first time Doing Business adds a gender component to three indicators— starting a business, registering property, and enforcing contracts—and finds that those economies which limit women’s access in these areas have fewer women working in the private sector both as employers and employees.

More information is available in the full report. Doing Business 2017 presents the indicators, analyzes their relationship with economic outcomes and presents business regulatory reforms. The data, along with information on ordering Doing Business 2017, are available on the Doing Business website at http://www.doingbusiness.org